Posted on 04/24/2005 6:08:20 PM PDT by CHARLITE
Southern heritage buffs vow to use the Virginia gubernatorial election as a platform for designating April as Confederate History and Heritage Month.
The four candidates have differing views on the Confederacy, an issue that has been debated for years in the commonwealth.
"We're not just a few people making a lot of noise," said Brag Bowling, a spokesman for the Sons of Confederate Veterans, the oldest hereditary organization for male descendents of Confederate soldiers. "This is not a racial thing; it is good for Virginia. We're going to keep pushing this until we get it."
Each candidate recently shared his thoughts on what Mr. Bowling called a "litmus test for all politicians." Lt. Gov. Timothy M. Kaine would not support a Confederate History and Heritage Month. Former state Attorney General Jerry W. Kilgore would support something that recognizes everyone who lived during the Civil War.
Sen. H. Russell Potts Jr. and Warrenton Mayor George B. Fitch would support a Confederate History and Heritage Month. Many past Virginia governors honored the Civil War or the Confederacy.
In 1990, former Gov. L. Douglas Wilder, the nation's first black governor, a Democrat and a grandson of slaves, issued a proclamation praising both sides of the war and remembering "those who sacrificed in this great struggle."
Former Govs. George Allen and James S. Gilmore III, both Republicans, issued Confederate History Month proclamations. In 2000, Mr. Gilmore replaced that proclamation with one commemorating both sides of the Civil War -- a move that enraged the Sons of Confederate Veterans.
Gov. Mark Warner, a Democrat, has refused to issue a gubernatorial decree on either side of the Civil War.
Mr. Kaine, another Democrat, would decline to issue a Confederate History and Heritage Month proclamation if he is elected governor, said his campaign spokeswoman, Delacey Skinner.
(Excerpt) Read more at insider.washingtontimes.com ...
All I'm asking is for you to explain your comments. Why should that make me unhappy?
So if your timeline was true, and I don't for a moment think it is, we spared the slaves another 5 to 10 years of bondage AND it makes out the south to be pretty stupid for starting a war to defend an institution that only had another 5 years to go anyway.
If those figures are true, and I've seen numbers all over the board on the size of the confederate army, that would mean that 4.4% of Union soldiers were killed in combat, and that as many as 22% of confederate soldiers were killed in combat. And people call Grant a butcher.
I do think it is interesting. War is about killing people and destroying things. 2,500,000 Union troops killed 134,000 Southern troops. 900,000 Southern troops killed 110,070 Northern troops . Do the math. Figure the kill ratio. I will agree that the North was much better at destroying non combatants houses and property.
Would you trust a book that was written while there was still living Veterans who fought in the War Between the States? History books can be written to try to change peoples knowledge. People that can rewrite history control it.
Was the South was supposed to be happy with a Tariff that protected the Northern Textile Industry and hurt them? The South was afraid that England would stop importing southern cotton. You said that cotton continued to be shipped. I will take your word on that.
You said that the tariff hurt people in the North also. If the tariff hurt them so much, don't you think that the people in the North should have done something? In my opinion, The red herring(the evil slavers in the South) was used to divert attention. Don't look behind the curtain. Watch my right hand people, Forget my left.
By the way, you challenged me. Show me yours and I might show mine. :) Be happy!!!
The tariff no more hurt the southern consumer than it did the Northern consumer. And the same tariff that protected Northern industries also protected southern tobacco, cotton and naval stores by placing duties on those items. I could understand the southern viewpoint if the tariff was applied unequally or if the south imported massive amounts of foreign goods, or if the tariff did not protect southern products, but none of that is true. It was applied equally, the south imported little in comparison with the North, and the southern industries were protected as northern industries were.
The South was afraid that England would stop importing southern cotton. You said that cotton continued to be shipped. I will take your word on that.
Why would they fear that? What indications were there that England would boycott southern cotton? In the year prior to the rebellion, 1.8 million bales of cotton were exported from New Orleans alone. Over 3.3 million bales were sent overseas in that year.
If the tariff hurt them so much, don't you think that the people in the North should have done something? In my opinion, The red herring(the evil slavers in the South) was used to divert attention. Don't look behind the curtain. Watch my right hand people, Forget my left.
And why would it not? The tariff protected domestic industries and allowed them to set an artificially high price for their product. But that was true if the consumer was in Charleston, South Carolina or Boston, Mass. The people in the North didn't get any break on the deal, they paid the very same price as their southern bretheren. And if the southerner were prevented from buying something cheaper overseas as a result of the tariff then so was the Northerner.
free dixie,sw
Are you a ANTI-Indian RACIST?
a SIMPLE YES or NO will suffice.
i've often stated on these threads that if you scratch a damnyankee, RACIST blood will likely flow from his/her veins, as damnyankees are HATERS.
free dixie,sw
even if you believe it was a MAJOR cause (OR even the ONLY CAUSE as the REVISIONISTS insist), KILLING about a MILLION PEOPLE (and probably 20% of those "persons of colour"!) to end a DYING institution 5-10 years early seems a REALLY high price!
free dixie,sw
US = 2.5 million
CS (including state troops,privately raised regiments, partisan rangers,Indian allied forces, home guards, etc)= 1.3 million.
frankly, i don't think ANYONE knows what the ACTUAL casualty figures were.
i've asked that question more than once of COL Andy Johnson of the SUVCW, CMH, etc. and he (a former chief historian of the USA) doesn't even want to GUESS the total number of soldier casualties.
free dixie,sw
"where ya been, lad?"
free dixie,sw
when i lived on the family farm (20 odd years ago) i kept "collecting" hound dogs that "mysteriously appeared" on the farm.
at one point i was feeding about 25 "lost, abandoned or strayed" coon/fox/deer hounds! and hounds EAT!
free dixie,sw
Agriculture was the major industry of the South and there was far less manufacturing plants. They either had to purchase products made in the North or have them imported. The tariff raised the price on imports so high that they had no choice but to buy products made in the North.
The North was mainly a manufacturing and commerce region and made a large part of the products that they purchased. They got the jobs and other benefits.
I understand that. But the people in the North were in the same position - they either bought goods manufactured in the North or they paid the premium for imported goods. In either case, the effects of the tariff were the same on both regions since both paid the same price for the manufactured goods.
The North was mainly a manufacturing and commerce region and made a large part of the products that they purchased. They got the jobs and other benefits.
And the south reaped the benefits from their thriving export market in agricultural goods. Both sides had areas where they were stronger than the other.
Only a neo-Confederate would compare the United States to the Soviet Union.
None of the other Confederate states were.
He stated in a speech in Kentucky, that the South had great soldiers, but so did the North, and since we had more people, we had more of them.
You failed to heed his warnings.
But that shouldn't surprise anyone, the South became an area were mail was restricted as was free speech, and even a gag put on those who would petition for freedom for the slaves in the House of Representatives, when the Southerners still had control of that Body.
There was nothing 'freedom loving' about the slave holding South.
This coming from a guy who cannot produce a letter that claims Lincoln was an anti-Semite.
That letter is not part of his collected writings is it?
It is not surprising that the first North American English colonies, then the states of the new republic, remained in dread fear of armed blacks, for slave revolts against slave owners often degenerated into less selective forms of racial warfare. The perception that free blacks were sympathetic to the plight of their enslaved brothers, and the dangerous example that "a Negro could be free" also caused the slave states to pass laws designed to disarm all blacks, both slave and free. Unlike the gun control laws passed after the Civil War, these antebellum statutes were for blacks alone. In Maryland, these prohibitions went so far as to prohibit free blacks from owning dogs without a license, and authorizing any white to kill an unlicensed dog owned by a free black, for fear that blacks would use dogs as weapons. Mississippi went further, and prohibited any ownership of a dog by a black person. [5]
Understandably, restrictions on slave possession of arms go back a very long way. While arms restrictions on free blacks predate it, these restrictions increased dramatically after Nat Turner's Rebellion in 1831, a revolt that caused the South to become increasingly irrational in its fears. [6] Virginia's response to Turner's Rebellion prohibited free blacks "to keep or carry any firelock of any kind, any military weapon, or any powder or lead..." The existing laws under which free blacks were occasionally licensed to possess or carry arms was also repealed, making arms possession completely illegal for free blacks. [7] But even before this action by the Virginia Legislature, in the aftermath of Turner's Rebellion, the discovery that a free black family possessed lead shot for use as scale weights, without powder or weapon in which to fire it, was considered sufficient reason for a frenzied mob to discuss summary execution of the owner. [8] The analogy to the current hysteria where mere possession of ammunition in some states without a firearms license may lead to jail time, should be obvious.
One example of the increasing fear of armed blacks is the 1834 change to the Tennessee Constitution, where Article XI, 26 of the 1796 Tennessee Constitution was revised from: "That the freemen of this State have a right to keep and to bear arms for their common defence," [9] to: "That the free white men of this State have a right to keep and to bear arms for their common defence." [10] [emphasis added] It is not clear what motivated this change, other than Turner's bloody insurrection. The year before, the Tennessee Supreme Court had recognized the right to bear arms as an individual guarantee, but there is nothing in that decision that touches on the subject of race. [11]
Other decisions during the antebellum period were unambiguous about the importance of race. In State v. Huntly (1843), the North Carolina Supreme Court had recognized that there was a right to carry arms guaranteed under the North Carolina Constitution, as long as such arms were carried in a manner not likely to frighten people. [12] The following year, the North Carolina Supreme Court made one of those decisions whose full significance would not appear until after the Civil War and passage of the Fourteenth Amendment. An 1840 statute provided:
That if any free negro, mulatto, or free person of color, shall wear or carry about his or her person, or keep in his or her house, any shot gun, musket, rifle, pistol, sword, dagger or bowie-knife, unless he or she shall have obtained a licence therefor from the Court of Pleas and Quarter Sessions of his or her county, within one year preceding the wearing, keeping or carrying therefor, he or she shall be guilty of a misdemeanor, and may be indicted therefor. [13]
Elijah Newsom, "a free person of color," was indicted in Cumberland County in June of 1843 for carrying a shotgun without a license -- at the very time the North Carolina Supreme Court was deciding Huntly. Newsom was convicted by a jury; but the trial judge directed a not guilty verdict, and the state appealed to the North Carolina Supreme Court. Newsom's attorney argued that the statute requiring free blacks to obtain a license to "keep and bear arms" was in violation of both the Second Amendment to the U. S. Constitution, and the North Carolina Constitution's similar guarantee of a right to keep and bear arms. [14] The North Carolina Supreme Court refused to accept that the Second Amendment was a limitation on state laws, but had to deal with the problem of the state constitutional guarantees, which had been used in the Huntly decision, the year before.
The 17th article of the 1776 North Carolina Constitution declared:
That the people have a right to bear arms, for the defence of the State; and, as standing armies, in time of peace, are dangerous to liberty, they ought not to be kept up; and that the military should be kept under strict subordination to, and governed by, the civil power. [15]
The Court asserted that: "We cannot see that the act of 1840 is in conflict with it... The defendant is not indicted for carrying arms in defence of the State, nor does the act of 1840 prohibit him from so doing." [16] But in Huntly, the Court had acknowledged that the restrictive language "for the defence of the State" did not preclude an individual right. [17] The Court then attempted to justify the necessity of this law:
Its only object is to preserve the peace and safety of the community from being disturbed by an indiscriminate use, on ordinary occasions, by free men of color, of fire arms or other arms of an offensive character. Self preservation is the first law of nations, as it is of individuals. [18]
The North Carolina Supreme Court also sought to repudiate the idea that free blacks were protected by the North Carolina Constitution's Bill of Rights by pointing out that the Constitution excluded free blacks from voting, and therefore free blacks were not citizens. Unlike a number of other state constitutions with right to keep and bear arms provisions that limited this right only to citizens, [19] Article 17 guaranteed this right to the people -- and try as hard as they might, it was difficult to argue that a "free person of color," in the words of the Court, was not one of "the people."
It is one of the great ironies that, in much the same way that the North Carolina Supreme Court recognized a right to bear arms in 1843 -- then a year later declared that free blacks were not included -- the Georgia Supreme Court did likewise before the 1840s were out. The Georgia Supreme Court found in Nunn v. State (1846) that a statute prohibiting the sale of concealable handguns, sword-canes, and daggers violated the Second Amendment:
The right of the whole people, old and young, men, women and boys, and not militia only, to keep and bear arms of every description, and not such merely as are used by the militia, shall not be infringed, curtailed, or broken in upon, in the smallest degree; and all of this for the important end to be attained: the rearing up and qualifying a well-regulated militia, so vitally necessary to the security of a free State. Our opinion is, that any law, State or Federal, is repugnant to the Constitution, and void, which contravenes this right, originally belonging to our forefathers, trampled under foot by Charles I. and his two wicked sons and successors, reestablished by the revolution of 1688, conveyed to this land of liberty by the colonists, and finally incorporated conspicuously in our own Magna Charta! And Lexington, Concord, Camden, River Raisin, Sandusky, and the laurel-crowned field of New Orleans, plead eloquently for this interpretation! [20]
Finally, after this paean to liberty -- in a state where much of the population remained enslaved, forbidden by law to possess arms of any sort -- the Court defined the valid limits of laws restricting the bearing of arms:
We are of the opinion, then, that so far as the act of 1837 seeks to suppress the practice of carrying certain weapons secretly, that it is valid, inasmuch as it does not deprive the citizen of his natural right of self- defence, or of his constitutional right to keep and bear arms. But that so much of it, as contains a prohibition against bearing arms openly, is in conflict with the Constitution, and void... [21]
"Citizen"? Within a single page, the Court had gone from "right of the whole people, old and young, men, women and boys" to the much more narrowly restrictive right of a "citizen." The motivation for this sudden narrowing of the right appeared two years later.
The decision Cooper and Worsham v. Savannah (1848) was not, principally, a right to keep and bear arms case. In 1839, the city of Savannah, Georgia, in an admitted effort "to prevent the increase of free persons of color in our city," had established a $100 per year tax on free blacks moving into Savannah from other parts of Georgia. Samuel Cooper and Hamilton Worsham, two "free persons of color," were convicted of failing to pay the tax, and were jailed. [22] On appeal, counsel for Cooper and Worsham argued that the ordinance establishing the tax was deficient in a number of technical areas; the assertion of most interest to us is, "In Georgia, free persons of color have constitutional rights..." Cooper and Worsham's counsel argued that these rights included writ of habeas corpus, right to own real estate, to be "subject to taxation," "[t]hey may sue and be sued," and cited a number of precedents under Georgia law in defense of their position. [23]
Justice Warner delivered the Court's opinion, most of which is irrelevant to the right to keep and bear arms, but one portion shows the fundamental relationship between citizenship, arms, and elections, and why gun control laws were an essential part of defining blacks as "non-citizens": "Free persons of color have never been recognized here as citizens; they are not entitled to bear arms, vote for members of the legislature, or to hold any civil office." [24] The Georgia Supreme Court did agree that the ordinance jailing Cooper and Worsham for non-payment was illegal, and ordered their release, but the comments of the Court made it clear that their brave words in Nunn v. State (1846) about "the right of the people," really only meant white people.
While settled parts of the South were in great fear of armed blacks, on the frontier, the concerns about Indian attack often forced relaxation of these rules. The 1798 Kentucky Comprehensive Act allowed slaves and free blacks on frontier plantations "to keep and use guns, powder, shot, and weapons, offensive and defensive." Unlike whites, however, a license was required for free blacks or slaves to carry weapons. [25]
The need for blacks to carry arms for self-defense included not only the problem of Indian attack, and the normal criminal attacks that anyone might worry about, but he additional hazard that free blacks were in danger of being kidnapped and sold into slavery. [26] A number of states, including Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin, passed laws specifically to prohibit kidnapping of free blacks, out of concern that the federal Fugitive Slave Laws would be used as cover for re-enslavement. [27]
The end of slavery in 1865 did not eliminate the problems of racist gun control laws; the various Black Codes adopted after the Civil War required blacks to obtain a license before carrying or possessing firearms or Bowie knives; these are sufficiently well-known that any reasonably complete history of the Reconstruction period mentions them. These restrictive gun laws played a part in the efforts of the Republicans to get the Fourteenth Amendment ratified, because it was difficult for night riders to generate the correct level of terror in a victim who was returning fire. [28] It does appear, however, that the requirement to treat blacks and whites equally before the law led to the adoption of restrictive firearms laws in the South that were equal in the letter of the law, but unequally enforced. It is clear that the vagrancy statutes adopted at roughly the same time, in 1866, were intended to be used against blacks, even though the language was race-neutral. [29]
The former states of the Confederacy, many of which had recognized the right to carry arms openly before the Civil War, developed a very sudden willingness to qualify that right. One especially absurd example, and one that includes strong evidence of the racist intentions behind gun control laws, is Texas.
In Cockrum v. State (1859), the Texas Supreme Court had recognized that there was a right to carry defensive arms, and that this right was protected under both the Second Amendment, and section 13 of the Texas Bill of Rights. The outer limit of the state's authority (in this case, attempting to discourage the carrying of Bowie knives), was that it could provide an enhanced penalty for manslaughters committed with Bowie knives. [30] Yet, by 1872, the Texas Supreme Court denied that there was any right to carry any weapon for self-defense under either the state or federal constitutions -- and made no attempt to explain or justify why the Cockrum decision was no longer valid. [31]
What caused the dramatic change? The following excerpt from that same decision -- so offensive that no one would dare make such an argument today -- sheds some light on the racism that apparently caused the sudden perspective change:
The law under consideration has been attacked upon the ground that it was contrary to public policy, and deprived the people of the necessary means of self- defense; that it was an innovation upon the customs and habits of the people, to which they would not peaceably submit... We will not say to what extent the early customs and habits of the people of this state should be respected and accommodated, where they may come in conflict with the ideas of intelligent and well-meaning legislators. A portion of our system of laws, as well as our public morality, is derived from a people the most peculiar perhaps of any other in the history and derivation of its own system. Spain, at different periods of the world, was dominated over by the Carthagenians, the Romans, the Vandals, the Snovi, the Allani, the Visigoths, and Arabs; and to this day there are found in the Spanish codes traces of the laws and customs of each of these nations blended together in a system by no means to be compared with the sound philosophy and pure morality of the common law. [32] [emphasis added]
http://www.firearmsandliberty.com/cramer.racism.html
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